Reviews

Starting with a high-energy “Live in Living Color” (Catch Me If You Can) Rob Mills in his first outing as a cabaret performer proved he was not only “Surprisingly good”, but surprisingly charismatic and massively entertaining.

Combining the friendly, funky feel of a jam session with an awareness of stagecraft and a hopeful eye cast toward a possible professional future, Under the Influence is a most worthwhile venture, aimed at showcasing Adelaide’s youthful cabaret talent in a setting where each can test their skills and refine their craft.

American playwright, Neil LaBute, is a polarising “love him or hate him” talent – considered by some to be a witty commentator on the darker side of the human condition, dismissed by others as a glib misanthrope whose work is loaded with gratuitous “shock for shock’s sake” vulgarity. LaBute’s 2009 work Reasons To Be Pretty is as confronting, challenging and divisive a work as one would expect, given the man’s iconoclastic reputation.

This is the first night of a series of seven different shows featuring a variety of performers strutting their stuff in true cabaret style at the transformed Cremorne Theatre. With a selection of tables and chairs scattered around the front stalls and a live band, Dash Kruck, a familiar face around the Brisbane theatre traps, plays Lionel, a shy, somewhat confused first-nighter on a reluctant World Premiere of his debut cabaret show, incorporating a musical evening of sex, booze, boys and mythical beasts.